I know I’m plowing a slightly old furrow here (Manish blogged about this product when it launched back in ’05), but in light of the Guardian commentary today by Sarita Malik that Red Snapper posted on the news tab, and the latest round of skin-ism and politics-of-appearance debates on the comment threads, I thought it might be useful to reproduce the scientific chart to the right. It’s an analysis by Emami Ltd., the makers of “Fair and Handsome” skin lightening creme for men.
The product website is a gold mine of manipulation, insecurity generation, and odd Indian advertising lingo, complete with a list of “free sample receivers” and “hey gals! give your opinion also” exhortations. It’s also, obviously, testimonial that at least in Desh, skin-ism is still in deep effect.
We all know intutively that the phenomenon extends to the diaspora, but how much, and with what consequences, is a matter of (endless) discussion. I have to say that although I found Malik’s commentary well written and to the point, she offered little concrete evidence of skin color discrimination among desis in the UK, and she undermined her piece by referring to Fair and Handsome as a Hindustan Lever (makers of Fair & Lovely) product, which it isn’t.
“Hey, babe, you not want to talk because not looking good? But I use cream? Why not want to talk?”
Where.do.I.even.BEGIN??????????
If I replace the heading of that chart “Why there is a need for fair skin?” … by “Why there is a need to be thin?”
It would then be applicable to west. All the patronizing language can then be used to explain, why do western women have to be thin? ..etc etc
Oh my gawwwd! This is so fucked up! Totally reinforces the EXACT opposite of what I’m trying to teach my kids in PE/Health. We’re doing a unit on self-esteem and how it is reflected in communication skills with people. My 9th and 10th graders have been talking self-esteem, body image/skin tone and will be moving on to relationships next! Sorry to yell, but I feel so passionately about kids learning that self-worth shouldn’t be connected to skin hue/shade.
RC, skin color is a big issue in the west as well, particularly shade of skin within many black communities. Just a couple of days ago I overheard two adults two parents, referring to a light-skinned teenager as being “much finer than that other black roach. ” Does it get any sicker? I’ll ansewer my own question, Yes-it does.
Just a little more western skin tone obsession for RC: My cousin once found her mother burning old, old photos of a bisabuela (great-grandmother ?). The only pictures we had of her. The reasoning was that ‘you can’t tell we are related to her by looking at us’. The old lady was black, as in African.
Check out Mary J. Bliges latest album – I thought it was Beyonce.
There is a look in the entertainment industry that is being swept across all faces and that is the golden glow with the elongated nose and blonde streaks in hair look. Everyone is starting to look the same and it is so boring to turn page after page of magazines and see the same face, hair and body type on every woman.
What a relief to see pastey Nicole Kidman and cocoa Whoopie Goldberg. Everyone else seems to fall into the “look alike” category.
Just saw Dreamgirl and i swear Beyonce could pass for Ash in one of the many money shots.
I came here with the intention of condemning the men who use this cream in the strongest terms possibe, but I find myself too exhauted from a morning workout that included 200 1bs of squats designed to bulk up my ridiculosly skinny indian legs.
NOTE: I deleted a comment that linked (not in support) to a racist/white-supremacist website and another comment that responded to a point made on that website. I appreciate you guys were just trying to add to the conversation but let’s not give that crap the time of day and risk wholesale threadjacking here. Thanks.
Same here.
After loosing 20 pounds on THE MASTER CLEANSE, Beyonce’s face became much thinnner and more angular and her nose was looking very Aishwarya-ish.
NOTE: I deleted a comment that linked (not in support) to a racist/white-supremacist website and another comment that responded to a point made on that website
Razib, stop linking to majority rights 🙂
Oh where do I begin? I feel like I’m still tired from discussing this issue last time around. This is huge huge huge business in India. Unilever is the parent company of Hindustan Lever which is the category captain in whitening products in India. Unilever is an Anglo Indian company and has huge products even in the United States…Breyers, Lipton, Vaseline, Sunsilk as well as Dove & Slimfast.
The whitening cream industry is a billion dollar industry not just limited to India. It’s huge business in the Middle East, all thru Asia concentrating on the “darker” shades of Asia. I don’t see this going away anytime soon. Just as acceptance of non slim people isn’t happening in the west anytime soon, wanting to be ‘fair’ isn’t going away anytime soon in India.
she offered little concrete evidence of skin color discrimination among desis in the UK
The light skin obsession is sky high in Pakistani Punjab and is surely carried over by the same demographic in UK. I am curious as to whether there is any part of South Asia, where skin color is not an obsession?
Unilever is an Anglo Indian company and has huge products even in the United States…Breyers, Lipton, Vaseline, Sunsilk as well as Dove & Slimfast.
I was once using the restroom of a very close African American buddy of mine on the way to a party and he had left his skin whitening cream outside. This shit is supposedly pretty big in all segments of the African American population.
For some reason, MSN messenger and Skype are installed on my computer (I have no idea how they work) and I get random IMs from dudes all over the world that sound JUST like this line. Usually followed by “You like [Mumbai/Cairo/Barcelona/Kyoto/Manila/etc.]? You come visit me?”
It definitely sells very well as do so many of L’Oreal’s whitening products in African countries. I didn’t even realize it would be a big thing here. The color obsession is just as well in Latino cultures as well as Black cultures. I have a Puertorican friend who has more of the African American look and she said her mother was disowned because she married a man who wasn’t as light skinned and non kinkied hair as her and had given birth to darker children. It rang very true to my own life. So the obsession exists with everyone except white people.
I’ve written about this on my blog. I’d post it on here, but I don’t want the interns on my back, so feel free to comment on it there.
Excellent point, RC — and it emphasizes how f’uped humanity is with respect to enforcing culturally constructed ideas of bodily normativity.
shruti, check this hot indian guy out. http://www.myspace.com/hotindianguy you’re gonna crack. he befriended every brown girl on myspace.
What about the whole hair color trend ? Every other person in India is going for that blond/brown (whatever it is called) streaks. This is also quite common among 1-geners girls here in the US.
My friend Jill and I used to have long conversations about this with respect to African American actresses and the “paper bag test” in Hollywood (i.e. if an actress is darker than a paper bag she won’t be cast)
Where I lived in Kenya there wasn’t piped water, but there was Fair and Lovely. That shit is everywhere and it is crazy. Talking with my friends who are of Puerto Rican, Peruvian, and Mexican descent, the skin color issues is prevalent in their communities also (esp. for folks who “look indigenous” or “look African”).
With the rest of Asia, part of the reason Filipino maids are recruited in Hong Kong is because people say that darker-skinned Sri Lankan maids scare their children because they are so dark they look like monsters.
Also, like brown_fob mentioned, the hair color trend is driving me crazy! Case in point: Lindsey Lohan. How cute was she with red hair, and how bizarre does she look blonde?
Guys who cater to this fairness thing in judging their women probably judge ‘fairness’ standards in relation to their own. Therefore, wouln’t a guy want to be as dark as possible in order to invite the self-esteem-enhancing comments “You’re so bloody kala yaar, how did you score her?? You must be real cool man, real cool.”
Uh…money shots? Many? Beyonce?
When does it come out on DVD?
But there is a difference here. While the hollywood standard is often very unrealistic and dangerous, being thin is a healthy thing. Excercising and eating right are things that nearly everyone can do regardless of race. The problem with this fair skin thing is that it creates a racial hierarchy that automatically precludes whole races of people from competing… which, especially for women, can be absolutely devastating. Not to mention the fact that being lighter in skin color is NOT an indication of health. You cannot convince me that Reese Witherspoon is more attractive than Stacy Dash just because she is white. Sorry.
And then you have men who come out of nowhere to assert that lighter skin for women has always been the standard (here and in a lot of disscussions within the black community). Nothing infuriates me more than seeing non-white men go way out of their way to prove to everyone they know that non-white women are ugly, have always been ugly, and will always remain ugly for xyz scientific reasons… and naturally that’s why they choose to date white women. Dating white men has its issues, but I have never, EVER, been around ANY group of white men who felt the need to use skin color as a decisive factor in determining beauty. So I can understand why the majority of non-white women who choose to date interracially date do so with white men. They usually don’t have the same skin color hangups as our male counterparts.
That was off topic but whatever…
Also, I am really honestly confused at the number of black americans some of you know who use whitening creams. Not that I’m the authority on its use, but I’ve never met anyone that used the stuff. Whenever I see discussions about this the topic is their use in Africa and sometimes the West Indies and South America. Which isn’t to say that skin color isn’t an issue in our community. It’s just that not very many people here use a cream to try and “fix” the problem. Hair on the other hand…
Hmmm, who does that description remind me of here?? 🙂
Do these creams actually work (even a little, obviously) or are the global corporations taking all these poor africans and indians for a ride with false advertising?
I can say the same myself. I’ve never seen a whitening cream in any of my relatives/friends homes but doesn’t mean they don’t exist. That these conversations are happening in homes/communities means it’s an issue for sure.
JOAT, I don’t doubt that there are some people buying this stuff. I’ve seen the Ambi in the stores and have considered buying it myself (for dark spots)… I just don’t think the use of it is that widespread in black america. Mainly because we use other caustic substances quite openly in the search for mainstream beauty.
In case of India, it is not a racial thing. It is a beauty standard, just like being blond is in the west. Look at the number of blondes that appear in magazines and movies, and you see that the same happens in India with light-skinned people. And in India, skin colour does not give an indication of your caste or social status. High caste south-indians are generally darker than low-caste north indians. Furthermore, the South of India (Bangalore, etc.) is richer and more developed than the North, so you do the math.
And finally, studies have shown than North and south indians are very close genetically, and we are a mix of several tribes. This means that it is natural for indian sibilings to be born with different shades of brown, some lighter, some darker. And yes, lighter skinned children are said to be more beautiful. But it does not mean that we are of different races, or that there is segregation between aryan and dravidian races.
Historically, the west has discriminated, enslaved and lynched dark-skinned people. The same does not happen in India: it is just a beauty concept. Wait you say: what about bollywood movies and magazines, doesn’t that count as discrimination? Well yes, but that happens in the US as well: only few women who fit the beauty standard have the spotlight.
However, India does have a problem with caste. Some of the news coming from India even today, report that high-caste hindus from backward villages are lynching dalit families. This reminds me of the klan from the 60’s, and how far we have to work to curb intolerance in our motherland.
Oneup: did you know that Ambi and Aveeno both sell dark spot treatments? They have identical ingredients yet Aveeno is I believe $1-$2 more expensive, for the exact same amount. Both companies are owned by Johnson and Johnson? What does THAT mean, in terms of marketing? I didn’t find the Ambi product in the “of color” aisle in the store, but figured it probably was for darker skinned women because of the beige/cocoa color theme on the packaging. (Anyway, save your money — Neutrogena on-the-spot is 100 times better!)
I still cannot bring myself to make a coherent comment on this topic. I’m too busy still wallowing in self-pity over my obvious lack of confidence, pride and self-esteem due to my incorrigibly dark skin and lack of usage of ‘Fair and Handsome’.
boo hoo hoo…
“Are you a Safi girl?”
I’m an ABD but lived in India for a year, five years ago. At that time, almost every ad on TV was for a skin-lightening soap or tonic.
I just came back from a visit and was happy to see that the commercials have branched out and didn’t see a single ad for a skin lightening product, which I think is odd. But that doesn’t mean Indians still aren’t obsessed with being light skinned.
All the girls on two-wheelers sport a look that I like to call Terrorist-Chic. They have long white gloves on, and have an old dupatta wrapped completely around their heads so just their eyes show, but most of them wear sunglasses as well. Five years ago, girls only dressed like that in summer time (this is in Gujurat). But it seems they do this year around according to my cousin. She says it’s the “fashion” now, which I can believe.
As far as how desis outside of India feel about dark skin, my experience has been varied. I would call myself a light brown skinned person. When I was younger, I would spend every day of the summer in the pool and my mom would call my sister and me karee booths (I love how in India a ghost is black and it the US its thought of as white). She would get annoyed with us for spending so much time in sun and getting dark but never stopped us from doing it. Now, she doesn’t care, she’s over it. Her only concern is that we aren’t damaging our skin and that we wear sunscreen when we are going to be out all day. I’ve been lucky that she cares more about what I do, than how dark I am. But I do remember another Indian girl from my high school who didn’t like being out in the sun because she didn’t want to get dark. And another friend who’s cousin didn’t go outside for a month before her wedding becuase her mother-in-law made some comment about her being dark and she was one of the lightest skinned Sindhi’s that I had ever seen in my life!
Personally, I think having dark skin is a blessing. I don’t have to worry about sun spots, pre-mature aging and wrinkles, getting sunburned and looking pasty white after winter. Some of my friends are starting to have crow’s feet and laugh lines and I don’t have any. I’m always carded at bars and people think I’m way younger than I look (I’m 30). Sometimes that’s a disadvantage when you are at work and you want people to take you seriously. But all in all, I love my brown skin!
Oneup,
Ambi uses two main ingredients in their creams that contribute to the lightening of dark spots and imagine what that does for all over face. One removes pigmentation from the skin and the other is a form of sunscreen, this combo used over a period of time does make skin with higher melanin concentrations “lighter”.
Here is a recent story from the British media.
By the way products with higher levels of RetinA as well as Vitamin C will help with the dark spots.
And here in the US people want to venture outdoors ..in the sun to have a nice tan.
Grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.
Hmmm. Its been a while, and only 33 comments on a skin colour thread. The monster is dead.
In the past two months, two brown girls I’ve been close to have gotten engaged to white guys. One of them being my cousin and the other a close friend. Their families feel alienated but I think its all their doing in the first place. These girls are dark skinned and gorgeous. When I hung out with them they always got hit on by tons of white guys, and many black guys. I know that they always prefered the desi boys just because of the “cultural comfort”. However they never got much attention from Indian guys and I think this has a lot to do with them being dark skinned. They were the “dark sheep” of the family and the folks at home had no qualms about stating this openly. In the end the chances of them meeting a nice brown boy were greatly diminished because of this kind of ridiculousness. Everything said and done, I am happy that they found someone who loves them for who they are and recognizes how gorgeous they are, but at the same time am quite disgusted with my own race and family for these double standards. I am not gloating over the fact that we lost these two girls to “the man”. All I am trying to say is that brown folks in general have to learn how to appreciating beauty in their own kind. For anyone who cares I am a FOB +5 years, Indian Male 27.
As a dark-skinned girl Indian girl, I’d like to be able to say that I never used whitening creams. But the only difference between me and the other girls was that they used it openly and I didn’t. I was ashamed of trying to whiten my skin, especially as I was always pointing out to uncles and aunts that white skin isn’t a requirement for beauty.
I didn’t want to be a girl who wanted to be fair, but in my confused teenage years, I thought I had no other choice. I thought, how else am I going to get noticed by the boys…any boy, even the smart ones who read serious novels and could hold an intelligent conversation. I thought I had a triple whammy: I was dark, fat and eccentric. 🙂
I was wrong about everything. I grew up, got a job, got confident. The confidence got me noticed. If only I had known earlier!
I agree with the majority of the commentators here. It is indeed despicable that Corporates etch our sense of fashion and play on our insecurities for profits. Throughout life, the average Indian is bombarded with these subtle messages that indentures one into a lifetime spent in the pursuit of that ever evading hue; all at tremendous financial strain, of course. The Indian government should immediately ban all companies manufacturing these fairness creams and deport their CEOs. This should be followed by establishing a programme geared towards educating the masses on the easily available natural, and therefore authentically Indian, alternatives to Fairness Creams. Natural fairness remedies concocted using Saffron, Neem, Lime, Turmeric, Hibiscus, Papaya, et al. should be promoted at a national as well as regional level. Fair celebrities like Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachan must be appointed as Ambassadors for this programme. A National Fairness Institute should be established to oversee the operations of this programme. Regular and strict adherence to the programme will ensure that the new India has fairer, clearer and attractive skin. A National Fairness Index should be established and a five year plan should be rolled out to match or exceed the index. Once the index is matched, the index should be upgraded for the next five years as the nation sets higher goals. Every Panchayat should ensure that the policies are being adhered to at a grass-root level and there should be weekly progress reviews. Schools should make arrangements to ensure that the pupils follow a strict regimen of cleansing, toning and moisturizing during every break. Eventually, there will be one, uniform, marriageable, skin-tone throughout India. “India Shining” will become true. And then and only then, shall we talk about affordable cosmetic surgery for the masses…
My dad would always yell at me if I ever used the word “tan.” He never understood the concept of purposely making your skin darker.
I thought that this color issue didn’t affect me since I’m fairly happy with my skin tone (sort of a medium to light brown, depending on the season). And I don’t usually hesitate to go outside in hot, sunny weather, even though I can get a really dark tan which takes like two months to completely fade away. But badindiangirl’s post made me realise…one year I went to Barbados just a week before I was supposed to go to India. In any other circumstances, I would have been soaking up the rays in Barbados, living on the beach, going snorkelling, boating, being outside the whole time, basically enjoying it the way a tropical Caribbean island SHOULD be enjoyed. But because I was about to go to India right afterwards, and meet hordes of relatives and other people, I tried my hardest in Barbados NOT to get a tan (really exasperating my friends in the process). I didn’t want to be perceived as too dark by people in India. And you know the funny thing…if the same situation were to happen today, I’d probably behave the same way. And you know what’s funnier…my sister, who is significantly fairer than me, but probably a lot more americanized, doesn’t care about these issues at all, and would gladly get a tan without regard to any impending India trip. This despite the fact that as a girl, she would be judged far more harshly than me for it. She doesn’t really get deep tans no matter what though.
Still only 39 comments? Penis envy has cured our racism.
Where’s Jai? Just kidding.
Milli ans JOAT: Thanks for the tips. 🙂
I definitely see how a product like ambi could be used to achieve lighter skin… But I don’t think that sales of the stuff automatically mean that those who use the product are using it for that purpose. It would be nearly impossible to figure out the percentage of ambi customers that are using it properly.
Its important to note the ethnic makeup of black people in the UK though. Black people in the UK are largely West Indian and African, right?
Amitabh,
Interesting that you say that. I know some desi girls here with the same issue, including those who are fair enough for their skin to actually end up turning red and peeling instead like the angrezis if they spend too much time in the sun. It’s quite amusing for everyone concerned, although obviously not a pleasant experience either.
Oneup,
Yes. They’re the second-largest non-white ethnic British group, after South Asians.
Red Snapper,
Heh heh, very funny 🙂 I’m staying out of this particular debate unless absolutely necessary.
It’s more than that, it’s a marker of class, just as it was in Victorian times in Europe. People who have fair skin are able to be that way because of their excessive leisure time. People that work in the sun all day can’t. In the US, where being tan is the beauty standard for whtie people, and most working women work indoors, tanning is a leisure activity, so being tan correlates with being of a higher social class. Obviously there are other issues at play, and I admit that the overly tanned fake and bake look is trashy, not classy, but skin color is a marker of the ability to afford luxury and that’s part of it’s cachet. Hence despite my Indian background, after living in the states for many years, I don’t feel like it’s been a great vacation unless I have some tan lines to show off.
Incidentally, many white people are under the impression that brown people don’t tan, i.e. they remain the same shade of brown throughout their lives. People often express surprise when they see my flip flop tan lines in the summer.
I was in India this summer and my mom asked me, “Would you like to get some of your freckles and your dark spots on your face taken care of? It will be so cheap to do it here in B’lore.” And without missing a beat, I replied, “No, mom. They are a part of me, and I’m going to keep them.” I was suprised at how easily the words came out of my mouth. My mom apologized right away and told me that she was proud of me for saying such a thing. At the end of the summer, I went to a salon to get a facial. The girl kept telling me how I must have had a “long” vacation because my skin was so “black” from the sun; she insisted that I try a skin “brightener” to even out my complexion. Because she was speaking in bad English, and I in bad Tamil, the wires were crossed and she ended up applying this junk to my face. During the process, I tried to convince myself that it was some sort of exfoliant. Afterwards, I looked at the bill, and sure enough, it was listed as an “organic milk bleach.” It made my face burn like hell for two days afterwards, and my skin tone looked exactly the same. Ugh. Part of me wished that I had enough time to go back to the salon equipped with the Tamil words to say “I’m perfectly happy with my skin, thank you!”
What’s wrong with a brown beauty standard? I’d think Desis would be an innovator of that type of thing. Not every culture in the world, and certainly not every individual in every culture thinks whiter is beautiful. Cuba and Brazil, for example, revere not blondes, but mulattas. Let’s not oversimplify the world. I think there are multiple beauty standards in competition, and I think the “middle” brown beauty standard should definitely be in the mix.
The skin whitening industry is huge in China too. I saw many commercials and advertisements for whitening cremes when I lived there 2 years ago. It’s interesting that Dove, which has the “campaign for real beauty” sells whitening creme in China. I actually bought some to try to take care of the circles under my eyes (which is what the woman did in the Dove commercial). But alas, it didn’t work.
Well, at least now the guys in India are feeling pressure as much as the girls when it comes to looks. Previously things were way off balance. Not that I promote the use of Fairness Creams, but I think it’s about time certain men realize they have to refine their game and prove themselves to womankind instead of just expecting to land a future mate on the laurels of the family name or whatever. Indian women bring fairness creams and a dowry to the conjugal table, men can at least bring their own beauty products.
I dont see how that reasoning applies to indians or africans. Desis are dark even where the sun don’t shine.
So these creams don’t even work. If they actually worked well this could be a huge business I am sure.
My skin is so fair (because I’m half-Egyptian, half-Polish/German; just check the SM photos from the latest LA meetup), and I HATE it. I don’t understand the fairer-the-skin hierarchy in desi cultures, and I probably never will. It seems so ungrounded. Because you know, South Indian ladies, I think your dark skin is BEAUTIFUL. It’s so radiant and glowing that I would kill for your brown hues. And South Indian men, I LOVE ME SOME SEPIA MALEAGE! Oh. I really do. I want to have your brownie babies (in the far-off future)! My heart is a-thumpin’, thumpthumpthump! I think desis are some of the most beautiful people in the world – dark or light, no matter to me.